Benny Winchester, a short balding man with glasses and the readiest smile she’d ever seen, stepped aside and then, after closing the door behind her, took her into his arms for a very welcome hug.
“Carley’s been frantic to hear from you,” he said a couple of seconds later as he stood back, looking her up and down. He was dressed just as she’d always seen him, in dark casual slacks, a button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up his muscled forearms, and loafers.
“Thomas took the purse she gave me,” Kate told him, able to find a wry smile in spite of the stress she’d been carrying alone. “And the money she also gave me was in it.” With a tilt of her head, Kate met Benny’s gaze, relaxing more than she had in a long, long while. “I can’t thank you guys enough for everything you’re doing, Benny. I’ll pay you back, I prom—”
“Don’t even say it.” Benny cut her off with a shake of his head. “You’ve been a member of Carley’s family a lot longer than I have,” he said. “We’re all in this together. For better or worse.”
For the past two years, her memories of San Francisco had revolved around the debilitating life she’d lived at the hands of her wealthy father and then her equally wealthy husband. But there’d been so much more. She’d been beaten down and abused, but Kate was only beginning to realize how very rich she’d been, too.
Stopping in Sacramento for Kate to pick up enough things to get her by, Benny—once he was satisfied they weren’t being followed—drove her to a beautiful, two-story cabin in the woods a good hour and a half from San Francisco. Carley was waiting outside with Taylor in her arms.
“Ma-ma-ma-ma-ma,” the little boy called happily, stretching out his arms. Wearing the jeans and lightweight sweater she’d pulled from Carley’s closet, Kate ran to him, tears falling down her face, holding him against her, feeling clean again although she still hadn’t had a shower. She’d been too eager to get to her son.
Taylor didn’t let her squeeze him for long, pushing away from her and wiggling his legs to get down. He toddled over to the plastic ball Carley had been rolling for him, picked it up, dropped it, followed where it rolled, picked it up and dropped it again.
Crying and laughing at the same time, Kate watched him. “He doesn’t seem nearly as traumatized by our separation as I was,” she commented to the other two adults.
“You’ve done a good job with him, Kate,” Carley said wistfully. “He’s happy and secure.”
Kate frowned at her friend. “I thought you hated babies. That you never wanted one of your own.”
Carley and Benny exchanged a telling glance and when Benny nodded, Carley said. “Yeah, well, you know how it is when you finally grow up and realize you were wrong about certain things?”
“So you two are trying?” Kate grinned.
“We’ve been trying for a couple of years,” Carley said.
“We’re due for another bout of artificial insemination next week,” Benny added, standing beside his wife. “Hopefully, this time it’ll take.”
Taylor’s gleeful scream rent the air. His ball had rolled down a slight incline. Kate kept her eyes glued on his tiny body as he made a stumbling run to retrieve the toy.
“How many times have you tried?” she asked her friends. She’d missed so much while she was away. Not only the support she’d desperately needed, but the opportunity to support the people she loved, as well.
“Three,” Benny said.
“Two didn’t take.” Carley took up where he left off. “And three months ago I miscarried.”
Kate’s heart twisted. “Not long before Leah disappeared.”
“Yeah,” Carley said, tears in her voice. “Right when I needed her most.” And then, that signature Carley veneer coming over her face, she looked at Kate. “That’s why Leah told me about the baby, about the father who swore it wasn’t his,” she said. “She’d asked Benny and me to adopt it….”
And that was why Benny Winchester would fight Thomas Whitehead to the end. In killing his sister-in-law, the senator had also killed the other man’s adopted child.
22
“We can’t hide out here forever,” Carley murmured.
“He’s going to find us sooner or later, anyway,” Kate agreed in a worried voice.
“We aren’t hiding, my dears, we’re taking a time-out to plan.” This was from Benny.
Cup of hot chocolate in hand as she lounged in a corner of the long tweed couch, Kate smiled at him. At his suggestion, Carley and Kate had embarked on nothing more taxing than lying around, reading, watching television or napping the rest of that afternoon. He’d grilled steaks for the three of them for dinner and, with Kate’s help, had ground up steak and carrots in the daiquiri blender—just enough to make them easier to chew—for Taylor. Only now, with the baby safely ensconced upstairs, pillows and blankets tucked around him on the bed he’d be sharing with Kate, had they broached the future.
“I thought time-outs were for bad kids,” she said. Her life was a shambles. She was a woman without an identity, married to a man she both hated and feared, in love with a man she’d never see again, trying to protect her son from the father who denied him and yet, she felt…loved. Protected. Even if the feeling was an illusion, she was grateful for it. It gave her a little more confidence in her ability to cope with whatever lay ahead.
“Haven’t you heard?” Carley asked, sending her husband a wry smile. “It’s the bad kids who have all the fun.”
The conversation wasn’t funny. They laughed anyway. And then, as if on cue, all three sobered.
She’d talked to her mother that afternoon. Vera Peters was in Europe but was getting the first flight home she could.
“I didn’t come back to hide,” Kate said. Although the weather outside was a cool forty degrees, the cabin was warm, cozy, with a fire burning in the fireplace on the opposite wall. Benny had turned off all but two of the lights when he’d come down from checking on Taylor one last time, before joining Carley and Kate in the living room.
“No, but you came back thinking Thomas was going to prison,” Carley said.
“I knew he was out on bail.” Kate took a sip of her hot chocolate, hoping to regain even a fraction of the peace she’d felt most of that afternoon. “But yes, I did think that with my testimony, with the proof of Taylor’s paternity, he’d be back in jail immediately…and then in prison.”
Instead the man was free—and expecting her to simply resume her previous existence. She shook her head. “I’ve known Thomas all my adult life,” she told the other two, glancing from one to the other. “I’ve seen what he’s capable of, and I still can’t believe he really thinks we can pretend the past two years didn’t happen. I ran away from him, changed my identity, went to extreme lengths to ensure that he couldn’t find me, that I’d be free of him forever—and he thinks I’m just going to forget all that and go back to being his wife?”
She’d been avoiding the thought all day. It was too bizarre to understand—and how did one cope with what one didn’t understand?
“It scares me, you know?” Her words were almost a whisper.
“Scares you how?” Benny asked. He’d poured himself a scotch and soda and returned to his lounge chair.
“I don’t know…” She paused, tried to put into words something that she could recognize, but never completely quite grasp. “Thomas has this ability to say something with such authority, and repeat it often enough, that somehow the absurd becomes reality, fantasy becomes fact. It’s as if…as if he’s this powerful being who has a control panel, and when he pushes the right buttons, people eventually do exactly what he wants them to. It’s like they’ve been programmed.”
There was a horrified but knowing look on Carley’s face. “Leah said something similar to me once, shortly before she was killed….”
Benny put his glass down and sat forward, clapping his hands together. “Okay,” he said. “I don’t think you’re going to be safe here for long. If Thomas doesn’t already know where you are, w
ith his connections, he will soon. If nothing else, he’s bound to find someone who knows someone who knows that Zack Wilson and I went to college together….” He included both of them in a concerned gaze. “I think you’ll be safer in the open, in the city. I’d feel a lot better if you’d come back to our house in the morning Kate.”
She was fine with that. Carley nodded, too. “Then what?” she asked.
“Thomas Whitehead is a charmer and a manipulator,” Benny said. “He thrives on control and has a shit-load of money. He’s also smart enough never to tell an out-and-out lie, which gives added credibility to what he does and says….”
“I’d agree with you completely,” Kate interrupted. “But how does my son fit in there? He’s Taylor’s father, Benny. I was a virgin when I met Thomas and I never even looked at another man while I lived with him. I didn’t dare.”
“And you know he was the father of Leah’s baby,” Carley reminded him.
“I know.” Benny nodded. “But consider this.” His eyebrows rose as he looked back and forth between them. “What if he didn’t falsify those medical records from twenty years ago? The scar his doctor described could be so minimal no one but a medical professional would notice it. Which means he actually might’ve had that vasectomy and he really believes he’s incapable of fathering children.”
“You think it reversed itself?” Carley asked. “I’ve heard of that, but it’s kind of rare.”
“Either that, or that quack he used didn’t do it properly.”
Implausible as it seemed, Kate wondered if he was right. “Amy Black told me they hadn’t done a sperm-count, yet. The doctor’s records were sufficient at this point. And he does pride himself on the fact that he doesn’t speak untruths,” she said, and then couldn’t help adding, “he thinks his way of choosing to tell only half the story, or not to speak at all, means he has integrity.”
“So we have Taylor tested,” Carley said, sitting forward, too. She’d showered and changed into a pink silk lounging suit that was a striking complement to black hair.
“They do buccal testing now,” Carley continued. “It’s a swab taken from the mouth. Not painful at all.”
Kate nodded. She’d researched it on the Internet the other day. “But with Thomas free, do I want him to know that Taylor’s his son? Look how adamant he is about getting me back. He’s called, what, no less than ten times today?” Benny had fielded several calls that morning before Kate arrived, and there’d been another half dozen on Carley’s cell phone that afternoon and evening. Eventually they’d shut the thing off.
“If he knows for sure the boy’s his, he’s going to demand rights to him,” Benny agreed.
“Forget that.” Kate sat up, put her cup down on the wood-planked coffee table in front of her. “I’ll die before I let that man anywhere near my son. He’s not going to have even a remote chance to hurt that baby the way he’s hurt everyone else he gets close to.”
“You aren’t going to die,” Carley said abruptly. “Don’t talk like that. It’s not funny.”
“I wasn’t being funny,” she said, then gave her friend a sheepish look. “Sorry, Carl, I’ll be more careful.”
“Thank you.” The other woman’s face didn’t soften noticeably. “I will fight this man for the rest of his life, but I will not lose another person I love at his sick and greedy hands. I don’t think I can live through it again.”
“I know.” Leaning sideways, Kate reached over to the other end of the couch, grabbing Carley’s hand and giving it a squeeze.
“I understand your reluctance to hand Thomas his son,” Benny said, his serious expression sending a shard of fear straight through Kate’s heart. “But have you considered the alternative?”
She had, but wanted to hear about the one Benny had in mind.
“Let’s say you refuse to go back to him—” he paused, glancing at both of them “—which is your plan, right?”
“Of course,” Kate told him. “That’s a given.”
Benny nodded. “So you refuse to see him. Thomas, being Thomas, is never going to blame himself for that. He’s the victim. His type of person always is. So, who’s he going to blame?”
“Me?”
“Yes, but not completely. Because he wants you back, he’s going to make excuses for you.”
Kate felt the blood drain from her face. Her hands and feet grew instantly cold. “He’s going to blame Taylor.”
Terror unlike any she’d known before took possession of her body, her mind, holding her captive in the worst kind of hell.
“You think I should get Taylor’s DNA test done to protect his life.”
“You should consider it.” He nodded again. “A man like Thomas Whitehead is not going to murder his own son.”
“He’d beat him, kill his spirit, but not his body, you mean,” Carley scoffed.
“That’s the second part of this,” Benny said, his look grave. “He needs you, Kate. His image, which is everything to him, has taken a hit over the past month and your sudden reappearance could eradicate most, if not all, of the bad press. The whole reason the prosecution dropped the charges against him is because they knew what the jury would conclude. The allegations against him couldn’t possibly be true with his miraculously returned wife come back to protect him, standing lovingly at his side.” Benny walked over to the fire, facing it for a time, then slowly turned, his shoulder against the stone edging. “With very little effort on his part, the whole situation gets tied up very nicely. He once again comes out the victim, because of the false charges against him, and gets a resurgence of public sympathy, to boot. Then he continues on his merry way.”
“And if I don’t go back to him?”
No one said a word for long minutes. Kate didn’t look at either of her friends as she searched desperately for alternatives.
Carley grabbed the pillow she’d been holding on her lap, threw it across the room, and watched as it slid to a halt in a corner of the dining area. “I will not have another Leah,” she said through gritted teeth. “That man has to be stopped.”
“If I go back to him, that would mean he’d be raising Taylor, pulling out his belt whenever the little guy spilled his milk on Thomas’s wooden floors, putting him down constantly….”
Benny lifted one brow. Said nothing.
“You aren’t suggesting I adopt out my son are you?”
“I’m wondering if your mother might be persuaded to raise him.”
Or Scott. Scott would. Taylor would be safe there.
Or…Carley and Benny.
And she’d die a slow and painful death without him.
“The man has to be stopped,” Carley said again, her voice rising. “We cannot let him do this, not to Kate and not to an innocent little baby who deserves a shot at happiness.”
Pacing the far side of the living area, Benny scratched his head. “People like Thomas Whitehead succeed, but only for a while.”
Kate’s gaze flew to him. If he had even a hint of an idea…
“You have to know what drives him, beat him at his own game….”
“Get him to reveal himself for the bastard he is,” Carley muttered.
“Okay, how do I do that?”
Benny sat back down. “That’s what we have to figure out and I’m guessing we don’t have a lot of time.”
Thomas Whitehead paced the plush carpet in his downtown office, his tense body jerking to attention every time he heard a sound in the room. The window-sill cracked, settled, as it adjusted to the warmer temperatures of a mid-May Monday in San Francisco. It had been twenty-four hours since Kate had walked out the front door of his home, past the chauffeur he’d fired, and gone…where?
He wasn’t going to let her disappear again. Now that he knew she was alive, he wouldn’t give her up. The damn fool he’d hired had come back from San Diego with nothing except a dead end on Coronado Island. That was one private investigator who was going to have a hard time finding work in this town.
The
distant honking of a horn came from the street far below. Thomas glanced down at the stopped traffic, trying to determine which vehicle had made the noise—which one contained the idiot who thought that blaring his horn would suddenly clear up the accident that was the cause of the jam.
Why couldn’t the guy get on his cell phone, do some business to occupy his time, and be thankful he wasn’t trapped in the smashed car a few yards ahead of him? Be glad it wasn’t his family that would be receiving a tragic call.
Speaking of which, Thomas checked his watch. The doctor was fifteen minutes late in getting back to him.
Impatient, Thomas forced himself to put his hands in the pockets of his pants and wait. He’d get Kate back one way or the other, but if the doctor phoned with positive news, he was home free.
Of course, that was the only thing that concerned him, he thought as he moved slowly toward the wet bar in his office, poured himself a whiskey straight up. He didn’t want children. Had never wanted them. If, by some fluke, the two women who’d accused him of fathering their children were actually correct, if the child—this boy, Taylor—was his son, it wouldn’t change his life, other than to solidify the image he’d spent a lifetime creating.
Still…to have a son, to bring forth another generation to carry on the Whitehead tradition of public service he’d begun in this state. To eradicate the memory of his tightfisted and heartless father…
“I have to tell you something,” Kate said. She and Carley sat at one corner of the dining table in the cabin on Monday morning, sipping cups of coffee they didn’t really need. They were waiting for Benny to get back to town, talk to some people, see what he could do to help Kate cut through the necessary red tape to reestablish her identity. He wasn’t Senator Thomas Whitehead, but he knew a lot of people and had his own clout. Kate had shown Carley how to mix homemade play dough out of flour and water, and Taylor was happily chattering on the sheet spread out a few feet away from them, plastering himself and every toy within reach with the stuff. He’d asked for Daddy when he’d first awakened that morning, but had been easily distracted. He was used to Scott’s long absences.
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